(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
MORE STRINGENT LAWS on who can purchase guns in America? Fine by me, but
don’t kid yourself that the largely symbolic legislation passed by the
Senate last week will halt the rash of copycat teen shootings in high
schools. And neither will the hypocritical cries of politicians for
Hollywood to police itself on the kind of entertainment it produces and
markets.

It was nauseating to watch Vice President Al Gore proclaim that
a new era has dawned in the United States when he cast the tiebreaking
vote in the Senate for limited gun control last week. He got a bump in
the polls, and the pundits claimed his campaign had a “good week,” but
according to his spokesman, Chris Lehane, “What was on our mind was not
politics. It was the kids.” Presidential candidates are so sleazy: Why
don’t they leave “the kids” out of their self-serving rhetoric?

And New York’s Nita Lowey, the sad-sack congresswoman waiting for
Hillary to decide on a Senate bid, wasn’t much better, claiming that the
Republican-controlled House must concur with the Senate immediately, not
in June, when Speaker Denny Hastert has scheduled the vote. “The
American people are demanding action,” she said last Friday. “There’s an
urgency in this country.” I’d say there’s more of an “urgency” to
procure Star Wars tickets, but then I’m not a politician looking for a
cheap soundbite.

Gore’s sanctimony was almost as bad as Bill Clinton attempting, mostly
in vain, to gather Hollywood moguls for a discussion about their moral
responsibility for movie and television programming. He then hopped off
to fundraisers with the very same people to raise money for Democratic
campaigns. In a May 20 speech in Littleton, Clinton delivered empty
words to parents and students: “We know somehow that what happened to
you has pierced the soul of America, and it gives you a chance to be
heard in a way no one else can be heard, by the President and by
ordinary people in every community in this country. You can help us
build a better future for all our children.” Maybe that was what the
grieving relatives of the victims wanted to hear, but what the hell does
it mean?

The current mantra of “gun control” won’t stop the random acts of
violence by disturbed individuals, whether they’re teenagers or adults.
And actually, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out in a May 24
editorial, violent crime has fallen dramatically nationwide in the last
decade.

The Columbine tragedy has captured the national mood by pure chance: Had
it happened three years ago there’s no telling if the same frenzy
would’ve ensued. Remember the McDonald’s shootout? The Waco killings by
overzealous government agents? Horrible bus accidents caused by drunk
drivers? Even the recent Arkansas, Tennessee and Oregon school violence
didn’t enthrall the media like the carnage in Colorado. The Oklahoma
bombing and World Trade Center nightmare were like pimples compared to
the recent events; Charlie Manson’s night of terror in California 30
years ago might as well have been a love-in. And Congressman Bob Wexler,
do you remember Richard Speck?

The teen in Conyers, GA, last week, who wounded six people at Heritage
High School, was a lovesick kid who obviously needed help; instead of
coping with being dumped by a girlfriend in the usual way—moping,
smoking too much dope, listening to The Doors’ “The End” for hours at a
clip—he resorted to a rifle. Pre-Columbine, I’ll bet that the admittedly
deranged T.J. Solomon would not have reacted in the same way.

The mainstream media has gone nuts, particularly the cable stations.
Starting with the nonstop coverage of the O.J. Simpson travesty, the
networks have devoted far too much time to crime; they say it’s
responsible news-gathering, but of course it’s all skewed toward gaining
higher ratings. The excessive attention to the death of Princess Di and
the horrible murder of JonBenet Ramsey was appalling. In the case of the
latter, more than two years after the little girl’s death, newspapers
and shows like Geraldo are still concentrating on the unsolved case.
Just last week came the headline that her brother Burke, not yet a
teenager, was the suspected killer; two days later there was another
bulletin that police authorities have dismissed his possible
involvement.

Currently, everyone in the media’s an expert on teen angst and the evil
National Rifle Association. Especially the moronic Rosie O’Donnell, who
continually embarrasses herself on her popular daytime talk show when
she speaks about anything but eyelifts and her supposed crush on Tom
Cruise.

When actor Tom Selleck, who supports the NRA, appeared on
O’Donnell’s show last Wednesday to plug his latest movie, he was
immediately provoked by the host, who apparently isn’t exactly an
American history scholar. Aside from her blatant hypocrisy—O’Donnell
appears on commercials for Kmart, a leading gun seller—she’s also dim,
explaining the Second Amendment to Selleck and her audience: “I think
[the amendment] is in the Constitution so we can have muskets when the
British people come over in 1800—I don’t think it’s in the Constitution
to have assault weapons in the year 2000... This is the problem—people
with opposing views, there is no compromise. You feel attacked, I feel
attacked.”

Rosie

A livid Selleck barked back: “I haven’t attacked you, I disagreed with
you. I haven’t mentioned assault weapons once. I didn’t come on your
show to have a debate. I came on your show to plug a movie—that’s what
I’m doing here... I think you’re being stupid.” The next day, on the
equally vapid Live with Regis & Kathie Lee, Selleck said of O’Donnell’s
ambush: “I think it was an example of the moral vanity and intolerance
that is all too often fueling the political debate in this country.”

O’Donnell half-apologized to Selleck, but then continued on a rant: “I
do not apologize for my feelings on this issue because the NRA is the
strongest lobby in Washington.” There’s no denying the NRA’s clout—with
Democrats as well as Republicans—but plenty of lobbying groups shape the
way campaign cash is distributed: the legal profession, for example,
tobacco companies, unions and, of course, the entertainment industry.

Howard Stern couldn’t resist getting his fix of ink over the
controversy, but as usual, despite his shtick, he made a lot of sense.
On his radio show Thursday, Stern, who spoke live from 30 Rockefeller
Center, where O’Donnell tapes her show, said: “Rosie O’Donnell is a
hypocrite. Why is Rosie O’Donnell selling guns through Kmart? Why is she
confronting Tom Selleck when she’s a gun saleswoman? She puts on a big
dummy like Tom Selleck—who’s comparable to talking to a retarded
person—and argued with him when he wasn’t prepared. I’m prepared. Put me
on!”

According to Friday’s New York Post, Stern continued: “I don’t think
guns are the problem. We’ve got a bunch of screwball parents, and we
have a society where people don’t take responsibility for their own
actions... Rosie O’Donnell will not speak to me because she’s afraid to
talk about any real issues with someone who can communicate.”
In Saturday’s Post, letter writer Bob Hunt, of Old Bridge, NJ, put

Stern

O’Donnell in her place. “While I am not a member of the NRA, and support
certain reasonable restrictions on guns that the NRA opposes, I found
Ms. O’Donnell’s ad hominem attack to be short on civility and logic...
If Alec Baldwin had been the guest, would Ms. O’Donnell have fired a
number of broadsides at him for encouraging people…to kill Rep. Henry
Hyde?”

And it’s not just the media: consider the following examples of bizarre
behavior in schools since Columbine:

• According to the May 14 Denver Post, eight sixth-grade girls,
suspected of casting spells on classmates, “were pulled from class...and
lectured for nearly two hours by a vice principal on the evils of
witchcraft.”

• At McDowell Elementary School in Hudson, OH, a nine-year-old boy was
suspended for two days because of a fortune cookie message—“You will die
with honor”—he concocted for a school project, the Cleveland Plain
Dealer reported on May 13. The boy’s mother, Jean Bauman, was
dumbfounded over the punishment and said: “I am very frustrated... They
[the school officials] see something verbal or written as much more
serious than a kid who goes out and slugs another kid.”

• In Howell, NJ, a 23-year-old Spanish teacher was fired for fabricating
a bomb threat—which caused a two-hour evacuation of Howell High
School—according to the May 13 Asbury Park Press. The woman, Dana M.
Kukielka, told police she was “frightened for the safety of herself and
the rest of the school as result of what happened in Littleton.”

• At Northeast High School in Philadelphia, the coeditor of the high
school paper, Josh Cornfield, wrote an editorial—appearing nine days
after Columbine—that said: “Maybe the school should open a section for
smokers or maybe you should all be shot. That’s right: Shot! It may be
radical but you’re going to die anyway. It may not be an instant death,
but it will be a slow painful death... We could make it easier and shoot
you all.” As reported by the Philadelphia Daily News, the principal of
the school met with Cornfield and then “took disciplinary action against
school staff who monitored the paper.”

• Massad Ayoob, director of the Lethal Force Institute in Concord, NH,
wrote an op-ed piece in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal that advocated
arming teachers. He wrote: “This is not as drastic a measure as it may
seem. No school has its own fire-fighting battalion on the grounds, but
all adult employees of the school know how to operate fire extinguishers
and supervise an orderly fire drill. A school nurse is generally on
hand, but virtually all teachers and school administrators have learned
basic first aid and CPR. It is but a small step from here to train
school personnel in the use of firearms, and to arm at least some of
them.”

Please, someone tell me America hasn’t gone nuts.

• The Virginian-Pilot ran a story on May 24 about a high school junior,
Chris Bullock, who faces expulsion from Tallwood High School in Virginia
Beach because of an essay he wrote in March for a “Standards of
Learning” test. According to reporters Alice Warchol and Matthew Bowers,
“Bullock wrote about a fictional student giving a speech... In the last
paragraph of the essay, the student reveals that he has a nuclear bomb
strapped to his chest.” Bullock was arrested and charged with
threatening to bomb a school, but was immediately released. Bullock’s
lawyer, Moody Stallings Jr., challenging the possible expulsion, told
the newspaper, “I think it is utter nonsense and hysteria to charge
someone for answering an essay question using their imagination... This
[was written] pre-Columbine. This would have never been brought to
anyone’s attention except for Columbine. How far back are we going to
go?”

• Finally, in Fairfield, OH, a seven-year-old girl was expelled for the
remainder of the semester for bringing a toy cap gun with her on a bus
going to school. Her mother told The Cincinnati Enquirer on May 20:
“She’s only 7. To her, it was only a toy. She didn’t wave it. She didn’t
point it. She didn’t make any threats.” A cap gun! Who didn’t play with
toy guns when they were kids? The school gave the parents the option of
sending their daughter to a psychologist, at their expense, in lieu of
suspension, and then forwarding the report to the school.

I don’t agree with the thrust of Jann Wenner’s editorial in the June 10
issue of his Rolling Stone, in which he calls for a virtual abolition of
guns in the United States—a naive solution that’s in vogue among the
far-too-vast punditocracy—but he made some intelligent, if self-serving
(he, after all, has a young readership to protect), comments along the
way. Wenner writes: “Will a modern McCarthyism take root in our high
schools? Will any kid who is a bit too odd or angry now be viewed with
suspicion? Are we going ‘profile’ children who dress in black, behave
like outsiders, appear to be interested in violent movies or songs or
officially disapproved video games? Shall we make the geeks even more
isolated and humiliated?”

Rabinowitz

Dorothy Rabinowitz, writing in the May 17 Wall Street Journal, had the
most levelheaded take on the media orgy after Columbine. Comparing
Colorado killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to Leopold and Loeb, the
affluent boys who murdered Bobby Franks back in the 1920s, Rabinowitz
recalls the arguments made by Clarence Darrow, lawyer for Leopold and
Loeb. She writes that that murder was the “product of unhinged minds,
[by] men without capacity for feeling—without which pathology they could
not have been driven to such deeds by all the baneful influences in the
world. An essential point all right—worth remembering when the next
summit on Littleton convenes.”

As for the media and opportunistic politicians? Rabinowitz has utter
contempt: “In Colorado, where hordes of the media were encamped,
journalists kept up by watching television like everyone else. There
were of course other matters keeping them busy, among them the effort to
stay abreast of all the latest rumors about imminent arrests, a third
shooter and the like... On television, by day and by night, the summit
continues, with town meetings and similar special programming devoted to
debate on all the factors named as contributors to this and earlier
school massacres—lax gun laws, violent films, videogames, execrable
music, alienation, the Internet, large schools, lack of supervision,
lack of religious teaching and more.”

Face It: You’ll Never Be as Rich As Si

Whenever business writers are hard up for a story they turn to The New
Yorker, not for a reading of “Talk of the Town,” but rather to report,
sadly, that the magazine is still losing money. It probably is—in last
week’s Crain’s New York Business, Valerie Block said that ad pages were
down eight percent from last year, while revenues have sunk 17
percent—but all that’s beside the point. When will these journalists get
it through their middle-class heads that Conde Nast’s Si Newhouse
doesn’t care! A $10 million loss to him is like dropping a quarter on
the sidewalk. The New Yorker, despite its editorial turbulence in recent
years, remains one of journalism’s prize franchises: It’s a Picasso in
Newhouse’s stable of magazines and he’s well aware of it. Really, it’s
not as if he can be proud of owning Details.

Block writes, “Some observers say that the only way to get the title
into the black is to cut the frequency in half, turning the weekly into
a biweekly. The move would save on production costs.” That’s as stupid
an idea I’ve heard for a magazine since Brill’s Content was launched.
The New Yorker has a loyal readership—it’s the only magazine that I
subscribe to for three years at a clip—and moving it to biweekly would
simply irritate people, as well as making it less timely. It’s bad
enough that so many “double” issues are being produced.

Remnick

David Remnick, Tina Brown’s successor as The New Yorker’s editor, much
to my surprise, is producing a magazine as vibrant as any in
circulation. I don’t care for the weekly’s politics, and the cartoons
still suck, but there isn’t a week I don’t thumb through its pages, if
only to rile myself. For example, in its May 10 issue there was a long
piece by Alex Ross on Bob Dylan that was quite remarkable, not only for
the photo of Dylan that shaved at least 10 years off his age, but for
the fact that it was written by someone who hadn’t been born when the
icon’s first record was released. Granted, I had trouble with Ross’
obligatory nod to Greil Marcus as “the most formidable of rock critics,”
and his obsession with Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (a fine recording,
but definitely silver-age), but his perspective was fresh and
enthusiastic.

Whereas so many jaded critics and fans have written Dylan off for almost
a generation now, Ross embarked on a cross-country tour of the singer’s
concerts and emerged with unique observations. At the conclusion of his
piece, Ross writes: “Dylan may be many things, but he is not a star: he
can’t control his image in the public eye. At the same time, he doesn’t
look, act, or sound like any great man that history records. He presents
himself as a travelling musical salesman, like B.B. King or Ralph
Stanley or Willie Nelson. He is generally unavailable to the media, but
he is in no way a recluse, and reclusiveness is traditionally the zone
in which American geniuses reside.”

Dylan

As a boomer who’s followed Dylan since ’62—true, I was only seven then,
but with four older brothers in the house, I couldn’t avoid being
hooked—I had many quibbles with Ross’ take on him, but I think it was a
gutsy article, and certainly more original than any other recent piece
I’ve read about the pop legend.

On the other hand, Jane Mayer’s article about House Whip Tom DeLay in
last week’s New Yorker was so one-sided that it could’ve been dictated
by Bill Clinton’s brain-dead press secretary Joe Lockhart. Starting with
a headline—“The Exterminator”—that’s by now a cliche, Mayer writes a
portrait of DeLay that’s unfair, and utterly infused with the
conventional wisdom about the man whom every DC insider journalist
calls, with glee, “The Hammer.” For example, Mayer writes that GOP Rep.
Peter King “believes that DeLay never accepted the public’s verdict that
Clinton’s lies and misdeeds did not merit removal from office.” While
polling did show that Americans were opposed to Clinton’s impeachment,
it wasn’t their decision: It was up to Congress to ponder the felonious
President’s fate. DeLay did lobby hard to convince his colleagues to
impeach the President; that was his prerogative. There are many aspects
about DeLay I’m not comfortable with—his association with the Christian
right, for starters—but his relentless work on impeachment was heroic.

Likewise, Mayer digs into DeLay’s past and finds, according to people in
Texas, that he “smoked, drank, and raised hell.” In addition, he’s had
his share, like many politicians, of less-than-ethical campaign
contributions. So what? The implication is that DeLay is a crook who was
grossly hypocritical in his attacks on Clinton. That’s absurd: First,
Clinton is the president of the United States, and must be held to a
higher standard; second, put Clinton’s rap sheet next to DeLay’s and
you’ll find the latter is a relative paragon of virtue.

Mayer is objectionable, but at least she’s a rigorous reporter, unlike
The New Yorker’s other political columnist, Joe Klein, who appears to
have been put out to pasture by Remnick.

(Stop the presses! As I write on Monday I’m assaulted by a Klein
“Comment” in The New Yorker’s May 31 issue. True to form, he has nothing
much on his mind; so why not waste some space on Hillary Clinton’s
possible Senate race! That hasn’t been in the news lately. Here’s one of
Klein’s trenchant observations, which falls into the “well duh”
category: “There is also a fair amount of Clinton fatigue abroad in the
land... At this point, the self-involved Clintons seem like teenagers
finally going off to college. Do we really want them to stay around for
six more years?” Well, no, Joe, we don’t: I wish you and other lazy
columnists had done some research on Clinton back in ’91 before you
anointed him the Democratic nominee for the following year’s election.)

Royko

Also in the May 24 issue was an awful media piece by Hendrik Hertzberg.
Just the beginning of his first sentence makes a reader cringe: “A
couple of years ago, after Mike Royko went to the big newsroom in the
sky...” Does Hertzberg have a no-edit clause in his contract?

In
describing the late Chicago newspaperman’s work, Hertzberg travels out
of his own comfortable backyard, giving readers a primer on
“soul-of-the-city” columnists; you know, those guys in the tabloids you
read as a “guilty pleasure.” So nods are given to Jimmy Breslin, Herb
Caen, Pete Hamill—“the New York tabloid prince”—and the Daily News’
Michael Daly, although his pedigree is somewhat tarnished by his Yale
degree. Hertzberg reveals his ignorance, or carelessness, in this
sentence about Mike Barnicle: “Mike Barnicle, defenestrated from the
Boston Globe for making things up, freelances from a Middlesex County
suburb, an internal exile.” Apparently Hertzberg’s tabloid reading
doesn’t extend to the Daily News, where Barnicle writes every Sunday.
Just one more Hertzberg cliche before I vomit: “The S.O.C. never writes
the sort of Olympian essay known in the trade as a thumbsucker. If he
wants to suck on something, he fishes a Camel out of a crumpled
pack."

JWR contributor "Mugger" -- aka Russ Smith -- is the editor-in-chief and publisher of New York Press. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

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